Bandai Animal Bowling Kits

As usual, while looking for something else, I discovered another bizarre kit line. This one is from the Japanese company Bandai.

The Animal Series is described on Scalemates as Animal Bowling, and that is just what the kits are. But instead of rolling a big, heavy ball at a line of pins or skittles, you launch a big, mean animal at them - take your pick from a Wild Boar, a Buffalo, or a Rhinoceros.

These look to be very simple, motorised animals, with only a few parts - which are out-numbered by the parts required for the set of bowling pins.

From the pictures on the side of the box, it appears the animals were wound up with a key, inserted in to the underside.

Each kit comes with ten white bowling pins, each of which is moulded in two halves. A sheet of stickers or decals includes animal faces and numbers for each of the pins.

It was the box art that got my attention. Each shows the animal in the kit sending its set of bowling pins flying, watched by various small creatures - a monkey of some sort on the Wild Boar, a pair of squirrels on the Buffalo, and a pair of tiger cubs on the Rhinoceros.

I found these kits on Scalemates, which says that all three date from 1970. SM also suggest that the Rhinoceros was re-issued at some time in the 1970s by Imai.

PG001-500 Wild Boar - ? plastic

PG002-500 Buffalo - brown plastic

PG002-500 Indian Rhinoceros - grey plastic

The only boxes I have seen just have Japanese writing on them, so perhaps the kits were only for the Japanese domestic market ? Certainly, the only sales listings for these kits all appear to be from Japan.

Mandarake looks to be a Japanese mail order or auction site. I did have some difficulty with the photos.

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1162353269&lang=en

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1218090379&lang=en

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1156969852&lang=zh

There is very little information on these kits, and I doubt if they were available for very long. Clearly toys rather than serious models, but they do score very highly on the weirdness meter.

Four photographs from Ebay.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

SHAZAM! CAR BOOT BOUNTY!

 I was quite chuffed with this morning's catch down the boot sale.

We burst through the early fog into decent weather in Wetherby.

Here's what I picked up. See anything you would have got?

There was a whole jar full of about 50 small plastic American football helmets. I bought one, 50p. Not sure which team that is. The small digger is by Tomica but the toy line is unknown to me.

I was pleased to find this Shazam Corgi car from 1979. Don't think I've seen one before. I'll try to spruce it up.

These packs of model decals and papers were going for a song at 50p each. I got two. No idea what's in them yet!

This big modern Batmobile was a snip at £1. It so reminded me of the Kenner Super Powers version that it had to come home to Gotham.

The red Barbie MG? is dated 1998 and the silver spaceship is for Junior. I think its Roblox maybe.

Last but not least, my biggest purchase at £8, this old case full of various bits and pieces from 1980's toys like M.A.S.K and Manta Force, plus a couple of Ghostbusters ghosts and more bits to keep me amused for a good while. The case itself is likely to be 1980's, as its covered in Transformers puffy stickers.

See anything you like?

LP SIGHTINGS

 Seen a few LP bits and bobs this year on auction, Yahoo Japan and Etsy.

Hover

Have you seen any?

HUMBER AND TRENTING

 The Moonbase Missus and me have just got back from an overnight stay in our new fave town, Barton Upon Humber in North Lincolnshire. An hour away from Moonbase down the M62, its old and pretty enough to keep us both happy and enough charity shops and cafes to make a sound Saturday morning.

 We also went to a Friday night gig, the main reason for going, to see one Nick Harper at the Ropery Hall.

Nick Harper is the son of folk rock legend Roy Harper, as in Hats off to .... by Led Zep. It can't have been easy forging a musical career in such a legendary shadow but Nick, who we only discovered last month, is enough of a songsmith and above all a guitar virtuoso to completely hold his own and being now 58 has done for decades.

Mind-blowingly original in both voice and guitar you can catch up with Nick Harper here. He's playing Birkenhead tonight!

Mr. Harper was ably supported by a fabulous warm-up act, Patrick Duff. Another fabulous singer-songwriter and guitarist, the small Barton crowd were definately blown away with his seasoned talent and incredible set of lungs! As a teenager he was the frontman of indie band Strangelove, compatriots of Britpop founders Suede and hailed as the next big thing before rock 'n' roll took its toll. You can read about Patrick's life here. We bought his biography for a friend.

After a decent kip overnight we hit Barton's church museum and shops this morning, fuelled by coffee and a Lincolnshire sausage butty.

St Peter's Church is a medieval structure now run as a museum by English Heritage. Full of preserved skeletons of dead residents, ample diseased bones, split skulls and burial artefacts from its hundreds of graves, its one of the most dug-up and researched places from the Middle Ages anywhere. Well worth a visit especially if you're a member of English Heritage, its a grounding pile with its many dark spaces like this, the bell tower.

The charity shops were reassuringly full of the living residents of Barton and proved bountiful too. Well at least I thought so. See what you think in the snap below.

The K-Tel 40 Supergreats double album, £1, is in near mint condition, a gift for a mate; the JLA novel collection I'd never seen before and in very good shape for £1 each too; the Dr. Who VHS tapes were a punt to be honest - being from the early 1990's they're not old enough for my own VHS collection but maybe of interest to a buyer on Ebay. £1 each, the double set £3.

There were lots more Dr. Who VHS tapes - should I have got them all? -  and a huge collection of hardback books called the History of Dr. Who, each book sealed in plastic and unopened and probably a part-work. At £3 each they were too rich for my purse. What do you think? 

I also snaffled this Dragon magazine from the hey-day of Kung Fu.

With the great Jimmy Wang Yu on the cover and also the centrefold, I so remember these mags and had them all as a youngster. I still have a quite a few now boxed up with my Inside Kung Fu pile in the attic. Did you have magazines like this as a kid?

I was also tempted by this Starline LP of TV Themes from the 1970's, which included the wonderful Catweazle [was it shown were you are?], the classic Please Sir and the Fenn Street Gang, which I think was a Please Sir spin-off, is that right?

Being by the Pandora Orchestra I didn't succumb as anything might happen once opened!

We then set off and toured down the Humber and its tributary the Trent on the eastern banks around Alkborough. Have you been there?

Alkborough Flats is an ethereal drenching of three rivers meeting in the mud. A primitive place complete with an ancient circular turf maze, Julians Bower.

The land and villages around Barton on the Humber and the Trent all seem ancient. Its like stepping back a few hundred years just being there. Flat vistas, distant rises, red brick hamlets, russet soil, wide long rivers, aged trees and empty lanes all give the area an other-worldly feel..

My final shot is a return to St. Peter's. As soon as aI saw the ladder propped up against a bare medieval wall I thought of that scene in the Stone Tape.

You know the one, where a young girl's ghost lets out a blood-curdling scream as she stands at the top of a set of stone steps next to an ancient bare wall!

BBC

Shown to a snug, festive but unwary British public on Christmas Night 1972, the BBC and Nigel Kneale created one of the scariest TV shows ever made. I had just turned 11 and it frightened the bejeebers out of me, as it did Jane Asher's character pictured below near the dreadful steps to nowhere. I hope the Beeb shows it again this Christmas, do you readers?

BBC

Exploring Apollo

The Apollo Moon Exploring toys were always a staple on toy shelves in the sixties and seventies, both in the large boxed set, smaller window boxes and the individual carded series. Probably one of the most recognisable models was the Apollo Command Module, garishly reproduced in bright silver chrome and a orange red nozzle.  I always wondered on the choice of colour scheme, with the red nozzle and put it down to economy on the part of the Hong Kong manufacturers.

However, Wired magazine have just run an article by space historian David Portree, relating the 1963 idea to use the basic command module as a freighter to ferry supplies into space. the accompanying photograph shows a pre-production Apollo at JPL, in chrome finish with a bright red protective covering on the nozzle!

I wonder if this was the inspiration for the toy?
 

Quantity 21

This was an interesting mixed quantity on auction ages ago.

Is that the Quercetti JR21 Fireball XL5?

Who are those figures?

Recognise anything else?

Aurora Man From U.N.C.L.E. Kits Part 3 - Illya Kuryakin by Paul Adams

It is now time to wrap up our look at the Aurora Man From U.N.C.L.E. kits, with model number 412 Illya Kuryakin. Again, this kit was only listed in the 1966-68 Aurora catalogues, and has never been re-issued.

The late David McCallum (1933-2023) played Russian agent Illya Kuryakin. Actually David McCallum was British.

Inside U.N.C.L.E. headquarters Illya wore a badge with the number 2 on it. This number was incorporated in to the Aurora kit number, which was No.412.

The kit has Kuryakin crouching on a path, behind a stone pillar with a lamp on top, having just climbed the wall behind him. With a pistol in his hand, he is providing cover for Napoleon Solo, who is following him in to the enemy lair.

The bases of the two kits could interlock, making a single large scene. A shrub in the Napoleon Solo kit could be used to hide the join in the wall.

Aurora do not mention what scale these kits are, but the catalogues do give the dimensions of the finished model. Height 6 inches, depth 5 1/4 inches, and width 8 1/2 inches.

The catalogues can be found on the excellent Box Art Den site.

https://boxartden.com/collections/gallery/index.php/Vintage-Model-Kit-Catalogs-1950-1999/Aurora

There were 33 parts in the Illya Kuryakin kit - 13 for the figure itself, and 20 for the base, including a small nameplate. Most of the parts were for the various plants.

Once again, the head, body, arms, and legs were all in two pieces. This time the hands were part of the arms, as was the pistol, but there was a separate holster.

The back of the wall has copyright notices for both Aurora Plastics Corp., 1966, and M.G.M., Inc, MCMLXVI. The plastic was again a pinkish fawn colour, perhaps intended as a flesh tone.

The box was of the usual heavy cardboard construction, with a lift-off lid. The full-colour printed paper wrap was glued to the lid.

On both of the Aurora MFU kits, the name of the character is barely mentioned on the box top. Far more prominence is given to the series title: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Below this are three lines of small print 'All plastic assembly kit consists of Illya Kuryakin and Dimensional Background. This kit can interlock with Napoleon Solo assembly kit to form large action scene'. The edges of the box give the kit number and price - Kit No.412-98, copyright notices for Aurora and M.G.M., 1966 dates, and Made in U.S.A.

The instruction sheet was again kept simple, as there were so few parts, but the name of the figure was given far more prominence. Stage 1 covered assembly of the figure, and Stage 2 the base.

The front page of the instructions promoted the use of Aurora brand cement and enamel paints. The back page had a photograph showing both of the MFU kits joined together.

The kit was also made and sold in Canada by Aurora Plastics Canada Ltd. These kits had revised instruction sheets with both English and French instructions, and slightly changed wording on the boxes.

Photographs from Worthpoint.

Is this a kit you had?

Paul Adams from New Zealand